Atlanta 2003 participants find place at God’s table and extend banquet to the city
by Laurie L. Oswald

ATLANTA (MC USA) – In CNN’s food court next to the Omni Hotel, Mennonites of all ages filled dozens of tables as they ate ice cream and pizza and shared how God’s banquet at Atlanta 2003 would last much longer than fast food.

Laughter, prayers and stories flowed freely at these tables, a symbol of Mennonite Church USA’s first biennial church-wide gathering, “God’s Table Y’All Come.” While eating there, Mennonites enjoyed fellowship, celebrated lifelong friendships and made new connections July 3-8 at the Georgia World Congress Center convention site.

About 8,000 Mennonites crisscrossed this courtyard on their way to conventions planned for adults, young adults, youth and children at the Congress Center site and for junior high kids at the nearby Marriott Hotel. Donning backpacks and digital cameras, participants headed for delegate sessions. They also attended worship services, seminars, arts events such as the “Many Voices, One Spirit” concert that represented the multiracial diversity in the church and activities such as the Walk for Reconciliation to the Martin Luther King Center.

The eating space provided cool from the heat and calm from the frenzy. Convention goers could rest their tired feet and ponder how they’d heard during worship services that God feeds them at God’s table. The Mennonite Church USA Executive Board Office of Convention Planning worked for two years to develop this theme in the five conventions, each with its own table to symbolize God’s invitation in Luke 13.

Worship speakers such as former President Jimmy Carter reminded audiences that God invites all people to the table – with dark skin or light, in good times or bad, in poverty or wealth. Each convention used a table in its worship, calling the young and old to the banquet of God’s love and invitation, beckoning them to be “little Christs” in the world.

“It’s easy for us to say that ‘I am a Christian’ if we belong to a church or congregation or have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior,” said Carter during the opening joint worship service for youth and adults July 3. “We say it glibly and with such ease.

“But the word ‘Christian’ means ‘little Christ’. Suppose we erased the word ‘Christian’ and substituted the words ‘little Christ?’ If when asked who we are we said a ‘little Christ,’ that would be sobering and demanding and it would make life very challenging. Profound changes would occur in our personal lives.”

In the days following the opening service, convention participants shared God’s bounty by being “little Christs” throughout Atlanta. About 4,000 adults, youth and children volunteered at about 40 servant projects across the city; donated more than 400 pints of blood for the Red Cross; and honored the Civil Rights movement in the neighborhoods near downtown Atlanta.

They also participated in a hymn sing in Centennial Park; and built new bridges in the ongoing journey of shaping a multiracial denomination by hearing stories about earlier Mennonite Civil Rights advocates in Atlanta such as Rosemary and Vincent Harding and others connected with Mennonite Central Committee and the Eastern Mission Board – now Eastern Mennonite Missions.

About 1,100 delegates at the adult assembly also brought many perspectives on church business to small-group tables in their sessions. It’s at these tables where they adopted churchwide statements on health care, immigration and abortion and worshipped in unity despite diversity in race, convictions and age.

In a first-ever program -- Young Adult Delegates to Assembly, or YODA -- young adults ages 18 to 30 served as delegates with the guidance of older mentors as a way to inspire increased involvement by younger generations in the denomination.

About 6,000 youth heard such speakers as Michele Hershberger, chair of the Bible department at Hesston (Kan.) College, speak of God’s table prepared in the valley spoken of in Psalm 23.

“You don’t have to have life all fixed up before you come to God’s table,” Hershberger said during worship July 7. “God’s table is made especially for people like us, people who know we won’t make it without the Good Shepherd, who specializes in lost sheep.”

Several hundred youth came up to the stage for anointing with oil and prayer, as they asked Jesus to heal wounds born in the valley of suffering.

Junior high kids discovered God’s abundance in a valley of loss. In response to about $1,500 of stolen items such as shoes, cameras and cash during a field trip July 6, the adult delegates collected about $2,100 in offerings to replace their misfortune.

“One child was shoeless because his only pair of shoes was stolen,” said Sue Conrad, assistant director of the Office of Convention Planning, after adult worship July 7. “The day it happened, the junior high worship had focused on what to do when the table is empty. And today, they are to celebrate the table of fullness. … This is our chance to demonstrate what mutual aid is all about.”

Mutuality and acceptance were concepts that Carol Grieser, coordinator for the children’s convention, and Rosemary Widmer, creator of the children’s curriculum, conveyed to about 200 participants. For example, Andre Baker, a student of Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., befriended Sally Kauffman, a blind fourth grader from Surrey, N.D., to serve as her guide.

“We saw our children really respond to the idea that God’s love is for everyone, no matter who you are or what level your abilities are,” said Widmer, a pastor of College Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind., where Grieser is also a member.

No matter what their ages, all people at Atlanta 2003 were challenged to come to God’s banquet, acknowledge their brokenness and bring others with them.

“It’s not enough to simply say the words of Jesus about coming to the table,” said Addie Banks, adult worship speaker July 4 and longtime Mennonite leader and peace advocate in New York City, where she is a member of King of Glory Tabernacle in the Bronx.

“We must become bread, broken, kneaded and baked in a hot oven. … God is calling us to lay ourselves before him, to expand our table beyond what our natural eyes can see. I believe the Mennonite Church is leading the way. I believe this is a historic moment.

“I still remember when it was ‘Y’all get to the back of the bus, y’all stay in the kitchen.’ Now God is saying at Atlanta, ‘Y’all come to the table. This is my table.’”

Jonathan Larson, an Atlanta Mennonite and worship leader, said July 7 before communion, “This is the Lord’s table, and he yearns for you and me to come. The Lord yearns for all of us to come from all our different tables – from the east and west and north and south.”

Laurie L. Oswald is news service director for Mennonite Church USA.